Spycar - I'm so sorry you had to endure that. It sounds horrible. Yes the booster to prevent shingles is in fact the varicella vax which is given to kids I do believe - I can't recall if it's a higher or lower dose than what kids get. But yes, it is thought that periodic exposure to the virus, boosts your immunity to the virus, so if the virus does re-awaken in your body, your immune system is primed to deal with it. So if chicken pox declines, the people who don't vaccinate their kids but get chicken pox naturally, are at increased risk for shingles since they won't be getting periodic re-exposure to the virus. I wish I could point you to some data but it's been some time since I read that data. Now that you've had shingles are you at increased risk for getting it again?

And with chicken pox decreasingly in the population, the incidence of shingles may in fact rise b/c it is thought that exposure to chicken pox is what helps older folk keep the pox virus dormant but every so often, challenging the immune system. So if you're not being exposed to the chicken pox as an adult, you lose your immunity to varicella, and hence shingles. So those who are not vaccinating their kids in the hope that they get chicken pox, if they want to ward off shingles, these kids, when adults, may require a varicella booster to ward off shingles unless of course more people stop vaccinating and chicken pox rises substantially in the population.

Dragons - other than the electrolysis question, how have you liked "The Elements" thus far?

Vaccinate the immuno-suppressed? Immuno-suppression is being unable to mount an immune response to a pathogen. You need an immune response to mount a response to a vaccine.

I'm just starting out as well so I hope someone has some ideas. I haven't checked the Yahoo group in awhile, perhaps there are some posts now that the book has been out awhile longer.

I don't know how much the T-square stuff is useful later on but the warm-ups are useful. It seems to be the time to cement the math facts and to begin nailing the multiplication tables. However, I noticed in one of the lessons, you make an equilateral triangle and cut it into thirds. You make another and cut it in half. You then take the one in half and cut it in thirds making sixths and vice versa for the others. I felt this was a nice intro to adding unlike fractions by finding the least common denominator. Actually I think those numbers aren't right b/c the final triangle was in twelfths...so it must have been thirds and fourths. My son enjoyed it so we made our way through. I did skip the last couple of lessons of that but still did the warm-ups.

Did you ever find more info on this? I'm curious as well.

I had looked at Bite Size Physics at one point and really liked the looks of it. I haven't tried it but see what you think. http://www.bitesizephysics.com/ I also have LEGO Education's Homeschool products Simple machines kit and a Science and Technology kit (that one has been renamed). You can get teacher's guide which explains it to you, has questions and followup for the kids etc. This might suit your needs as well. These are not a LEGO product but rather LEGO EDucation which is part of LEGO but separate company. IF you're interested, I can post links if you can't locate it. Their website isn't the easiest to navigate. There is a homeschool PDF catalogue you can download.

Thanks for the info Carol! I'll look at the book you mentioned.

There are now other books to go along w/ RS4kids science. The author has written a History of Science to go along w/ RS4K chem 1. There is also a art/music book, a philosophy book, and a critical thinking skills book. Of course these all come with a hefty price. I don't they have started shipping just yet but you can see sample pages. Google KOGS. looks interesting but not sure if it's worth the money...I think i might splurge for the History book however.

Mcconnellboys: can you please post a link to the Elements program you mentioned? Is it this one http://ellenjmchenry.com/id25.html? thanks

Anne/PA: have you seen the MOEMS grade 4-8 books? I'm wondering if the 4th graders are actually advanced 4th graders such that the books would be over the head an advanced rising 3rd grader?

kissugar - if you're vaccinated again, that will help to ward off shingles. You will mount a new response to the virus and this new response will help to keep the virus which is laying dormant in your nervous system, in check. Colleen - it's for kids like yours, those that react badly to vaccines, that I think this school system is trying to protect. I forget the official name but they did it w/ measles. You have an infected person. You surround them w/ people who have immunity to measles. The disease has no where to jump to and it's ended there. But if you have one person w/ no immunity, say a child in the hospital where the infected person is, the child gets it...passes it to his siblings, they go to school and pass it to their classmates, to their teachers, who pass it to the postal worker, the grocery store clerk .... By removing suspectible people from the infectious area, you reduce the chances of the virus getting out into the population. This protect the kids who can't have the vax. the way I see it, and I'm not involved w/ this school system and have no idea what their real motivation are but I would think they are trying to protect kids like yours and are not being vindictive to those that choose not to vax.

Breann in WA - I generally find that conversations along these lines really get no where fast lol. People generally take a stand based on information or gut feeling or whatever and that's it. But I'll share my thoughts anyhow to your question about what is the big deal about a chicken pox epidemic. A few cases of chicken pox no big deal. But imagine the family who if they miss 2 weeks of work, the father loses his job and can't feed his family. I know of families like that. Or the child who is so ill, needs hospitalization and the family can't afford it. Who pays for that child? We all do. Imagine an epidemic of measles where 100s or 1000s of adults are out sick and kids are out sick. We saw something similar after katrina hit New Orleans. There weren't enough people to run the utility companies, to keep stores open. Same with the flu. What if it's a bad, bad flue and critical employees are missing weeks of work (for their own illness and then their kids illnesses). Imagine doctors and nurses getting infected and then unknowingly, passing these diseases onto their patients. My friend told me that she was told by several adults who had shingles, that it was the worse pain they had ever endured, worse than child birth or any injury or illness they had ever had. I spoke to the pediatrician about the recent outbreak of Measles where I live. Her comment was something like "mumps, rubella - no big deal really. Measles? That's a very bad one." A few cases of chicken pox seems like no big deal until 1000s of kids are sick and you start seeing the small percentage which have very serious complications. Then the adults who are susceptible (pregnant woman etc) start having serious and fatal complications. What about the non-vax kid w/ chickenpox or w/ the flu- no big deal to that kid but who sneezes on the pregnant lady in line at the grocery store w/ no immunity to chickenpox, or the cancer patient receiving bone marrow ablation or the HIV+ person or the etc.... I think more people are choosing to selectively vax their kids and perhaps that is a happy medium. But it's one of those things were it's nearly all or nothing ... if only 50% are vax, herd immunity is broken. We're already seeing this in other countries where vax rate has dropped hence these diseases are showing up in the US from folks traveling abroad. And with folks living in closer quarters particularly in urban areas, things can be worse than in the good old days when people lived farther apart and were more independent (ie could stay on the farm and not be exposed). It's a slippery slope to go down that's for certain. Anyhow, I don't know what the answer is. Those are just my thoughts.

skissugar: the blood work that was done was to check for antibody titers to varicella. Those titers can decline with age. I would also think that if you had a severe case, perhaps you didn't mount a vigorous immune response, hence you are losing your antibody titer sooner. Those with the highest titers, may not have even known they had the disease. My best friend's titer was off the chart, she NEVER had chicken pox and her mother was checking her b/c her siblings had it. You can't equate how severe your disease course was with antibody titers. And as antibody titers decline, you lose the ability to keep the virus in check (varicella is with you for life) and hence older folk whose immune systems are declining are susceptible to re-emergence of the virus which is then called shingles. My friend, who is a nurse, said the few people she spoke with who had shingles said it was the worse pain they had ever experienced, worse than child birth, worse than anything.

One thing I would suggest...for EM homework such as that, be sure to give her the real coins to work with. That can make a huge difference for some kids. I too hated the DNQ and it took me time to translate that in my head to the coins. Seeing the coins, and better yet, touching the coins makes it soooo much easier. Once she gets that down, she'll have an easier time w/ the DNQ notation. I think Purplecow's suggestion is a very good one and would be what I would do. To practice math facts and mental math, the Rightstart game set is a great choice for ASing or supplementing any math curriculum.

Breann in WA - when you say "Those who are at risk, immune-compromised, the elderly, pregnant women, etc should get the vaccine if they want it and they'll be protected. But it shouldn't be forced on my healthy children." are you referring to the flu vax or the chicken pox vax? If the chicken pox vax, those are the people who should NOT be vaccinated. Chicken pox vax is a live, attenuated virus. Those people are protected via herd immunity - ie from the people who naturally get the disease and those that are vaccinated. Well the elderly (healthy, older folk) should get chicken pox vax to ward off shingles. In some epidemics, there are those that die and those that live. Some that have a mild case and those that get a very bad case of the disease. The same is true for any vaccine. No vaccine is 100% effective b/c no one immune system is exactly alike. So for the kids whose vaccine fails, they are also protected via herd immunity. There is also a large political component to vaccinations. Billions of dollars are saved in time NOT lost from work due to adults being out due to illness and parents not being out due to caring for sick children and in health care as well. I read a report once, can't recall the numbers, on the amt of money lost annually due to adults being out of work due to shingles. the cases of measles that are in pockets in the US are from unvax kids being infected during foreign travel, returning to school and infecting both unvax and vax kids. One way to stop the spread is to remove kids who are infected as well as those who have not been vaccinated so they can't be infected. This allows the virus to die out in the US. While the rates of these diseases are low in the US, we are only an airplane flight away from an epidemic. Keeping kids from being infected, allows those who don't want to vax to have that choice and maintain herd immunity at the same time. I do respect everyone's right to make decisions on what is best for their family.

I found IQ only minimally helpful as well. Also given the caveats of using FSIQ vs GAI of the WISCIV, if your child has a significant difference between FSIQ and GAI it's hard to know which number to use when looking at IQ scales. Have you looked at Explore testing or SCAT testing? I've been told these tests can give you handle on where your child is functioning. Achievement/ability tests such as the WJIII can you give you an overall feeling on where on the gifted continuum your child lies - I've been told. I also don't think a child needs to be 100% challenged in every subject all the time. Plus, w/ Ruf's I've never understood how many do you have to have at each level to be that level. 50%? 75% 95%

I think it really depends on your kid. I love RS. I did RS A (3/4s of it) then switched my son to B the summer after K. We did B while he was in 1st grade. He didn't have a lot of homework. We then took some time off from math. In 2nd grade, I tried to do C but he had too much other homework. Now it's great for me knowing the RS methodology b/c I can introduce the RS way when he gets to that concept in school but RS builds so incrementally that it is hard to skip around. The games are great.

I wouldn't worry. My son does things like when the work is too easy, something he knows well, he'll do some strategy like that to challenge himself or make it more fun. As long as he knows how to count change etc I wouldn't worry. RS uses the counting up change to lead into subtraction. So for ex: 16-5 would be 5 to 10 is 5, 10 to 6 is 6 so 5+6=11 so 16-5 is 11.

If you google LEGO NXT it will pull up the places that sell it and current prices. I've seen some as low as $215. the LEGO Education kit is a slightly different kit from that sold in retail stores and online. There is a fun challenge coming up. It has a Mars theme. If you check out NeXTSTep Blog, scroll down a few days and you'll see a link to it. Jim Kelly is creating this site and is author of "The Mayan Adventure." Some of the physics curricula and I think the 4H curricula all use the older RCX system and have not been updated for the NXT, just so you know. There is a cool looking one called "Physics by Design" which I think was updated and contains both RCX and NXT in it but don't quote me on that. If you google it, it should pop up. If not, I'll try to find a link for you. Capt_Uhura

If you google WISCIV and GAI you'll pull up several links. One will be the WISCIV technical report IV. If you have the scaled scores, you can calculate the GAI (general abilities index) which is based only on VCI and PRI thus removing the WMI and PSI. I have a link to some data from Gifted Development Center which I'll post later showing that gifted kids (previous 130 FSIQ) averaged FSIQ of 123.5 on the WISCIV. This was largely attributed to average PSi and WMI scores. If the VCI or PRI exceed WMI or PSI by 23pts I think, you can calculate GAI instead. In fact, b/c the VCI and PRI are better predictors of giftedness and success in gifted programs, the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) put out a bulletin to schools suggesting they only test w/ VCI and PRI as a quicker more accurate test rather than including PSI and WMI. I can provide a link to that later if you can't find it. So for example, your DC might have FSIQ of 129 but GAI of 145 putting him WELL into the gifted range. My understanding from reading on the internet is that WMI and PSI are more important when looking at the lower end of the spectrum or for looking for LDs. There is some data suggesting that low scores on PSI might indicate ADHD. The one article I read specifically mentioned low Coding subtest scores. You need testing and full evaluation by a licensed professional to look at attention issues and can't base it on any one test. A child can easily have one subtest be way off due to end of test fatigue, or any number of factors. My son had a large spread between his PSI subtests which were outside the expected range. I think the subtests are supposed to be w/in 2-5pts and his spread was 7pts so you can't draw too much from that subtest. If the two subtests are measuring the same thing and differ greatly from each other, how do you know which one is more correct? These tests are quite fallible, I'm coming to the conclusion. Rebecca - were your DD's subtests on WMI w/in a few points of each other or did they vary by more than 5pts? Capt_Uhura

Nitascool - when you say his PSI was 20pts lower than WMI, what ranges are you talking about? Are you talking an average PSI (100-109) vs 120-129 WMI? Are you talking below average PSI? Gifted kids are scoring average for PSI and WMI on the WISCIV.

If you look at the IOWA Acceleration scales handbook which assigns points for numerous items in determining whether a child should skip a grade, it discusses that if a sibling is in the grade the younger sibling would be skipped to, don't do it. Now I'm not sure I agree with that and perhaps given that you are HSing, you can work around it such as having them work in different rooms, use different programs but also emphasize to do DS that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses as well as different motivation. It's not that younger sib is any smarter, she is just more motivated in math than he is and point out all the things he's great at.

I don't know if this helps but check out this Scott Foresman link http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html Click on the grade you're interested in. If you think look under Scoring Rubric and Writing Models, it gives examples of each level of the scoring rubric w/ writing samples. It even critiques the samples.